1. Field of the Invention
The invention is in the field of computer science and more specifically in the field of transaction management.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a typical organization, sale of a product or service can impact multiple parties. For example, in a business environment such transactions may involve a sales team, their supervisors, their supporters and post sale personnel. In some cases it is desirable to distribute credit (e.g., commissions) for a sale or responsibility for a purchase, among these parties.
Available software includes applications configured to track sales and distribute commissions to personnel within an organization. In these applications different personnel are assigned various allocation criteria for use in determining the transactions for which they should receive credit. For example, a sale may be associated with a specific sales territory, a specific product type, a sales team, an individual salesperson, a channel partner, a price range, a payment schedule, etc. Each of these characteristics may be associated with allocation criteria and used to determine one or more individuals who should receive credit for the sale.
In a typical prior art application, each transaction is individually examined and its characteristics are compared with each person's allocation criteria. When the characteristics match the criteria, the person receives some credit for the transaction. In large organizations, these comparisons may include thousands of transactions and hundreds of personnel. The total number of comparisons is, therefore, large.
Previously available systems have a number of drawbacks. For example, since each transaction is individually examined, the performance of these systems responds poorly to increases in transaction volume. In addition, setup and maintenance of prior art systems are difficult since each person's allocation criteria is manually defined. Likewise, changes in products, personnel or organization structure can require, possibly extensive, modification of system data. For example, when a new product is introduced the allocation criteria relating to each person who may receive credit for a sale of the product may need to be modified before an appropriate credit can be assigned. Finally, in existing systems, the ways in which credits are assigned can be unclear to personnel tracking or expecting to receive commissions. These systems often do not lend themselves well to the generation of reports that itemize the commissions due to each person.
There is a need for systems and methods to more efficiently manage allocation of transactions, such as sales commissions. For example, there would be a benefit to having systems capable of processing large numbers of transactions more efficiently, automating aspects of allocation criteria management, or more clearly showing to a sales person how their commission was calculated.
Many systems and methods of allocating transactions include a problem of transactions that are unallocated, under-allocated, or over-allocated. For example, in some cases a sales transaction fails to meet the allocation criteria of any person to whom commission might be paid. In some cases, a sales transaction meets the allocation criteria of some people but not enough people to completely allocate the available commission. The existing art does not include efficient methods for allocating transactions that are unallocated, under-allocated or over-allocated.